The True Heart
by emmfullness
Summary: Goku and Vegeta are plagued with strange dreams that have them waking in middle of the night. With Bulma's and Chichi's patience running thin and the coincidence a little uncanny, they rush to find the source of their mounting discomfort.
1. Hauntings

Goku had had many a restless and sleepless nights in the past week. The same foreboding dreams would arouse him, his heart hammering in his chest. All hours of the night he'd spring awake, the covers slipping down off his bare chest as he grasped his head and glared forward at nothing in particular. Chichi's concern had been mounting as even her most powerful home remedies had failed to improve her darling husband's condition. In desperation, she had even begun calling the family doctor for possible advice, but even this couldn't stop her fretting for her two boys. How could Gohan possibly concentrate to his fullest if he was so distracted with concern for his father? And what of Goten? He's just a little boy still unable to cope with his own nightmares. Her only condolence was that Goku could never remember his dream to convey it to his youngest son and thus Goten's greatest of fears would remain as being put to bed with no dessert.

This morning, Chichi, with sunken, tired eyes, prepared breakfast over a hissing skillet while Gohan quickly gobbled down some toast as he was, as usual, running very late. Goten sat in a booster seat by his father, munching on oatmeal, but mostly just dictating yesterday's most fantastic adventures with the aid of his brightly colored spoon being swung about. Goku, putting his best attention efforts forward for his toddler, stared at the table with a tired face but still with a cheery smile and an occasional laugh at appropriate moments.

"Well, I just don't know what to do," Chichi said despairingly over the stovetop.

"Don't worry about it, Chichi. I'm sure it'll pass on its own," Goku reassured her.

"It's been nearly a week, Goku. Don't you think if it were going to it would have by now?" she argued grumpily as she placed a fat stack of fresh pancakes and French toast upon his plate. Goku was then too distracted by the luxury of food to respond, leaving Chichi to place herself heavily in a chair, slump over, and stare dazedly into her teacup. "  
"I haven't called Bulma yet. Maybe she'd know a thing or two about it, you know, with how busy things get over there," she said half to herself, half to the surrounding space for anyone to reply.

"I bet she would, Mom," Gohan said, contributing his bit of optimism.

"And do I get to see Trunks!" Goten cheered from his seat, more excited to play than to concern himself with the problems around him.

"But I have so much work to get done here," she complained, worry renewing itself in her expression. A forlorn and disappointed moan instantly emitted from Goten.

"Maybe I could go ask," Goku said in an upbeat volunteering. "Besides, it'll give me a chance to catch up with the guys."

Just as Goten's face lit up, Chichi's face formed into a scowl as she stood up, slamming her fists into the table. "AND WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I'D LET YOU OUT OF MY SIGHT! YOU'LL JUST WIND UP GETTING YOURSELF INTO ANOTHER ADVENTURE WITHOUT ME AND IT'LL BE YEARS UNTIL I SEE YOU AGAIN!" Goku instantly coward with a feared chuckle.

"I see your point, maybe you should just call."

Her face brightened again. "Now that's a better idea." She began clearing the table and promptly shooed Gohan out the door with a ten minute warning for class to begin.

Later that day in the high after hours when Gohan was long gone at school and Goku and Goten were long gone to swim and fish, Chichi picked up her phone and dialed the familiar number of her best friend. It had rung no more than once before her voice responded, "Hello?"

"Hey, Bulma, this is Chichi. I was wondering-"

"Chichi! Oh my gosh, you're exactly the person I've been needing to talk to," Bulma cut her off. "You know a lot of those home cures, I was wondering it you had any for soothing nightmares? Vegeta's been waking me up with them every night this week-"

"HIM TOO!" Chichi shouted in dismay.

"Yeah, I guess. Goku's having troubles as well?"

"Yes, and I just don't know what to do about it."

"Hmph," Bulma sounded with a firm resolve, "then I bet it's somehow related! Get over here right now and we'll figure this one out." She hung up the phone.

"Hello? Bulma?" Chichi questioned the dead air, a loot of gravest concern engraved deeply into her face. "Not again."

Disclaimer: like most everyone else on I do not own Dragon Ball Z.


	2. The Next Step

It was not until later in the evening that they had finally arrived at Capsule Corp and everyone had already congregated around the circular table discussing their own theories on the matter. Gohan had gone there straight after school and was already amongst them as Goku and Chichi took their seats. Goten and Trunks had long made themselves scarce upon their entrance through the sliding Capsule Corp doors. Vegeta sat a couple seats down from Goku with his arms crossed over his chest and his head leaned nearly ninety degrees back. His eyes were closed and he made those near-snoring sounds typical for those on the cusp of consciousness and unconsciousness. His eyes appeared bruised with fatigue. It would seem Vegeta needed his sleep almost as badly as Goku needed food.

"Welcome, you guys," Bulma said cheerfully. "You haven't missed anything yet: just Oolong's fantastic synopses."

"Well, I wish I had something better to add at this point, but my head is all out of thoughts," Chichi despaired.

"Hmm…maybe we should take a more scientific approach," Bulma said, slamming her right fist into her left hand. "First, let's identify our problem specifically: our husbands can't sleep. We can solve that before we figure out why. One possible solution could be to drug them until they couldn't possibly snap out of it and hope that the sleep's too deep to be ridden with night terrors."

Like a spark had been thrown through the air, Vegeta snapped awake with a pin-point glare directed straight at his wife. "There's no way you're drugging me, woman," he bit at her.

"If it gets you to sleep, I sure as hell will. This isn't easy on me, either, you know. Every second you spend awake is an extra second I have to see your ugly face," she snapped back, all venom returned plus interest. Vegeta growled, glared, and then huffed in resignation, unwilling to pursue an argument any further in his tired and muddled state of mind.

"Let's just give them a normal dosage of sedatives first. I don't want to hurt them with an over dose," Chichi offered up.

"Are you sure a normal dosage would work on these behemoths?" Bulma questioned.

"Well, I think a bottle or two might cut it," she said on a second thought, going off with Bulma to the nearest medicine cabinet.

As they arrived back, Goku instantly began to argue, "Hey, aren't you going to ask what we think, first?"

"No, now take these: the whole bottle," Bulma said, shoving a large container into both the men's faces. Too fatigued to go against their wives' wishes, they both began gulping down little pills. Meanwhile, their wives began preparing beds upon couches in a nearby living area.

"You two ready, yet?" Chichi asked as she re-entered the room with the table.

"Yeah, and boy am I woozy," Goku said, putting the medicine bottle back down. Vegeta emitted a dazed grunt in response. Steadying their husbands on their feet, Bulma and Chichi walked them back into the living area where their beds had been made. They laid them down and tucked them in before walking off to chat on other matters. Soonly, the world around Vegeta and Goku began to twirl and darkness set in followed then by their now familiar flash of bright celestial light that marked the beginning of their paranormal dreams.


	3. The Beginning

Barely recognizable images flashed through their minds: small children, a space ship, and Earth. Small phrases like "gods," "yours," and "please help" could be picked up. Torrents of these visions and sounds overcame them as they became faster and louder. The face of a heavenly woman appeared several times as it was she who had been repeating the phrases. As the terror proceeded like this, time passed swiftly for hours until the voice became much more urgent. "Take these, place them on their wrists," it said, handing them both objects they could not see. "Now go," she demanded, an image of a forest clearing flashing. "Go now! They're here! GO NOW!" With that, the two Saiyans snapped awake and simultaneously peered into their hands to see tiny, dainty chains, too small to even fit around one of their fingers. They looked each other in the eyes a moment then took swift flight towards a forest clearing a good couple hundred miles away.

A Few Hours Ago, in a Space Ship…

Ayame stood on the seat, stretching herself to peer over to the control board. Countless lights were blinking and she could just barely make out their current coordinates on the screen. "We almost halfway there," she thought, her inner voice sounding almost as tired as she felt.

"Pluton 6 only eight day away, Komoku," she whispered at her slumbering sister in the seat next to hers. They had been traveling for what seemed like eons to the two toddlers. Only having three and two years of life-experience under their belts (with Ayame the eldest, though size comparison might have dictated otherwise), the two children were already being shipped out on dangerous missions, mostly to do the dirty work of their king and master.

Ayame seated herself again and stared off into space. She hadn't slept in a couple days to allow her younger sister extra recuperation time after all their recent battles. She looked around the ship, which was very small compared to the larger vessels meant for adults. A tiny pile of food was pushed against a wall as they had not been granted a refrigerator. Ayame stood back up and looked again at the screen. They were running three days early. "We get food," she said to herself, hiking up her leg over the control board so she may climb atop it to reach what she understood to be the "pit stop" button that would track them to the nearest bio-sporting planet.

Back on Earth…

Goku and Vegeta had arrived in a small forest clearing, quite verdant and appealing, where they found a ship similar in structure to those created by Dr. Briefs a few years back on the way to Namek, but smaller in scale. Cautiously and without sound they entered the clearing and began to investigate, not entirely sure why, but it was quickly evident as a small child popped out from behind a shrub gripping a few berries in her tiny fists. She was decked in the Saiyans' traditional fashion, her body suit being a bold blue color. Her height could not have added above eighteen inches in total and her straight dark black hair flowed over her tiny, fragile structure down to her hips and framed her face with dazzling, though tired, blue eyes.

She stopped and stared at the two men blankly, not knowing what to expect of them. Goku bore upon his face the friendliest grin he could possibly muster and kneeled down to be closer to the child's face. "Hi, my name is Goku. Welcome to Earth," he said kindly, though the girl stepped back a few paces. "Are your parents around?" he asked out of curiosity. The child slowly shook her head. "Any adults?" Same response. Goku's face now had its turn to have concern carved into it, but so as not to scare the girl, he decided to continue with small talk. Besides, he still had to manage to get the bracelet on her wrist. "Do you like berries? Are you hungry?" No response. Just the same blank doe-eyes. "If you want, I can show you where the sweetest berries are." She stared a moment, looked back at her ship a second and then turned to face him again. She nodded. Goku smiled and stood up taking one step closer, but the approach was merely met with several steps back and a gleam of fear in those eyes. "You're kinda skittish, huh?" he asked. "It's alright. I won't hurt you," he attempted to reassure her. The girl simply stood and stared until he began walking away. "They're over this way," he explained. "They only grow by water." The child followed for only a couple of paces when she turned with a start back into her ship, abandoning her berries behind her.

Vegeta had cleverly managed to sneak aboard in the girl's distraction and low and behold he had located yet another child, this one similar in appearance, but with ruddier hair, wearing green, and of larger size, possibly an entire twenty-four inches. He had found her quite asleep in a seat and had taken advantage of her sedate position and placed the bracelet on her wrist. It was shortly after the clasp was closed that the other had sprinted in and taken a solid _thwack_ at Vegeta's right shin, knocking him off balance for a couple of seconds.

"Why you little brat!" he growled through clenched teeth, reaching down and lifting her up by the collar of the body suit.

"You leave sister alone!" she shouted, blowing a ball of bluish light into his face, leaving it slightly more beaten than before. Vegeta's eye twitched with intolerance but was disrupted by a barrage of yet more of these light-pellets. In swift retaliation, Vegeta tossed her casually like he'd toss a candy wrapper once its sweet contents had been devoured. The child's body slammed into a wall and then fell forward, leaving an indentation as evidence to the impact.

"Vegeta!" Goku cried angrily as he came upon the scene. "That's _not_ necessary!"

"I'll tell you what's necessary, Kakarot!" he retorted. Vegeta picked up the girl in the seat, still undisturbed, into his arms. "Now round yours up and we'll go," he said, walking towards the exit.

"You no take my sister!" Ayame cried out in absolute furry, a tear streaming down her face from her right eye. She launched after her pin-headed aggressor, but was stopped in her tracks as Goku deflected her with one massive hand, sending her flying back again.

"You go ahead without me. I'll catch up with you later," Goku said to Vegeta but with eyes locked onto the girl in front of him.

Vegeta grunted and replied, "Suit yourself," as he took off. Panic crossed over Ayame's face like lightning as she saw Vegeta disappear through clouds out a window.

"We're not trying to hurt you," Goku said quietly with a caring face. "You guys are too young to be on your own and look awfully sick. Come with me and we'll take care of you."

Ayame stared up at him with untrusting eyes. "You take my sister!" she shouted, eyes turning a brilliant and all-encompassing shade of blue. "You take her!" With that the earth began to quake furiously, but rather it quake with building energy, it quaked as if by natural phenomena. No objects would fly off the ground, but rather they'd shake and fall. Goku looked around a while for what was coming, but by the time he saw it, it was too late to dodge. It was a massive wall of water closing in and destroying everything within its wake. Quickly, Goku grabbed the child and shielded her with his own body as the deadly wave crashed over and engulfed them. The water broke through windows and rushed through the open door until the two were completely submerged. Ayame twisted and fought against Goku's strong grip, but it was all for naught. Goku maneuvered himself out through a window and blasted a kamehameha wave with his last breaths toward the ground, shooting them up like a rocket out of the intense water current. Once above it, rushing water was the only apparent sight to behold for miles. Cries for help could be heard amongst the crashes. Paying no mind to Ayame's intense biting on his arm, he quickly clasped on the bracelet. Instantly, the water disappeared and her power levels plummeted down to that of a normal three-year-old's.

Goku, with eyes wide, stared down at the child and asked to no one in particular, "What are you?"


	4. Devil Babies?

Author's Note: No, this chapter is not yet done, but I thought I'd give y'alls something to read while waiting, anyway. Hope you enjoy what's done thus far, though.

The house reeked of all odd things foreign. Komoku awoke to an array of strange and dazzling new sensations, though they also left her quite baffled and disoriented. Strange people with strange faces surrounded her, all speaking very fast and in a tongue she barely understood. There were lingering scents of youth, of age, of sweat, of perfumes, of women, of men, and, most importantly, of food. Having awoke to a ruckus, she was left in confusion only a second or two before realizing that none were talking to _her_, but rather merely shouting amongst themselves. She quickly found comfort in the chaos, knowing from plenty of experience that the more distracted adults were with themselves, the less mind they'd be paying her, thus she locked on her senses to her most prominent desire of the moment: that blessed aromatic wonder of food.

Once having deciphered the general direction of the source, she identified her surroundings more carefully, like any sneaky being would. She noted her first obstacle to be the box-shaped structure that she had been oddly placed. The structure was padded and well cushioned, making it highly comfortable. It also featured soft fabric sheets that she easily labeled as potential hiding spots should anything not go according to the desired plan. Standing up, she peered over the side to get a better view of the greater macrocosm of the room. It was much larger than the living quarters that she was accustomed to, yet much smaller than the palace rooms that she was familiarized to back on her home planet. It was filled with a variety of creatures: a man with three eyes, a midget with six dots, a talking dolly, and even a green being of whose kind she was already acquainted, though for whose specific race she was lacking a name. She assumed all creatures present to have supernatural powers, as all two year olds seem to view their larger, older counterparts, and began plotting thusly. Taking time to duck every once in a while to help minimize the chance of being viewed, Komoku located several obscured hiding locations on the way to the exit from whence that beautiful smell was coming. The difficulty would be the process of escaping her lidless box unnoticed, however. She waited patiently for a climax of action in the room, which, as was bound to with so many people together in close quarters, came very momentarily as a female with dark locks began squawking furiously at the large males. As the little girl's vocabulary was very limited in their language, she only picked up scattered words like "children," "you," and others of such simplicity. It was in this guise that Komoku silently leapt from her raised perch and landed without creating any disturbances or attracting any attention, though a bit of pain befell upon her right leg. This, however, she ignored as commonplace and non-distressing. Besides, stifling agony of the belly always takes precedence over that in a limb. Stealthily, and with due quickness, Komoku made her way to her first checkpoint: behind a large vase up against a wall and a piece of towering furniture of a sort Komoku could not identify, neither by function nor appearance. She stooped down low here, well concealed on all sides and took in another bit of surveillance, making certain that none had been alerted by her movements. Her mouth began to water as the scent became more powerful.

The room remained noisy as everyone seemed to squabble amongst themselves until Komoku heard what sounded like a female's silken voice emanating from an outside area: "Goku, come hold her -----." The child could not understand the last word, but arrived to the statement's general meaning nonetheless. This alone did not phase her, however, until the chaos of the scene had suddenly ceased as a large, dark-haired man made his exit in the same direction that Komoku was headed.

"No. Bad," Komoku thought in slight upset, but her fears continued to rise as the six-dot man observed upon the vacancy of her former location….

"Umm…you guys…where'd the other one go?" Krillin remarked, carefully digging amongst a pile of silky blankets.

"WHAT!" Chichi exclaimed, rushing over and simply tossing the bedding aside in a frenzy.

"Cool it," Piccolo said in his ever-calm way. "Her energy is easy to sense. She's huddled in that corner over there."

With a sigh of relief, Chichi slowly approached where Piccolo had designated when suddenly what seemed like a two foot long rabid rat jumped out at her and began ravenously clawing and biting at her face and chest. In the sudden upset, she lost all sense of calm and reason and began running and screaming while furiously batting her hands down upon her beastly aggressor.

It was Krillin who first took the incentive to remove the attacker, but quickly found that handling the thing was significantly more difficult when it was conscious than when it was peacefully slumbering. Nails and teeth came clenching down on all his bared flesh. Shortly after, he began running and screaming in similar fashion whilst pleading, "GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME!"

"WHAT'S GOING ON IN HERE!" exclaimed Bulma, entering now in response to such well vocalized distress. Upon witnessing the screaming and circling Krillin, she proclaimed, "Can't you stupid men handle _anything_ by yourselves?" Gently, she plucked the girl from Krillin's arms and held her close, which allowed the sweet smells of the kitchen that she was previously occupying to fill Komoku's nose.

"Food," the child said, looking Bulma dead in the eyes, figuring that one who smelled of food ought have some nearby.

"Yes, you can have all the food you want, poor thing," she said with a loving smile. "Poor dear, they've probably scared you half to death."

Goku was playing a frustrating game of "keep-the-child-still" in the kitchen as Bulma went to check on the others. Ayame was strapped into a highchair and certainly was not very pleased about it. The first order of business had been to feed the poor, tiny youngsters, but it had not turned up so easy. The first child had immediately exclaimed, "POISON ME!" upon their first attempts and they had not been successful ever since. They had also quickly discovered her fine-tuned and highly skilled ability to almost instantly regurgitate the contents of her belly, not only out her mouth, but also out her nose. They had begun a practice of holding both her mouth _and_ her nose until she swallowed, but it appeared the girl feared suffocation less than poison as it had also become an unsuccessful endeavor.

"Why won't you eat?" Goku asked in frustration. "You know if you don't we'll have to take you to the hospital."

"YOU POISON!"

"No, I didn't. I promise it's good. Here, look," he pleaded, shoving a bite of mashed-up baby food in his mouth. "See?"

"NO!"

"Please?"

"NNOOO!"

Goku sunk his head down onto the table in frustration with a deep sigh as the child began kicking and flailing while shouting small phrases like "Let go!" and "Gimme sister!"


End file.
